Sir Christopher Chope

My daughter, for a project at school, has been following the progress of Finns Law. Sir CC derailed the second reading of this, just as he has derailed the upskirting bill.

He has a history of objecting to private members bills generally as he believes the process of these is wrong and not debated properly. Given the news showing a rather sorry looking number of MP’s present at the time, does he have a point? Or should these bills go through? The number of MP’s criticising him when they were not present for the debate suggests he’s right.

Perhaps the ensuing furore should be directed at those MP’s who don’t turn up.

I am posting this as my daughter is interested in what others think, especially as you’re the ones who elect them!

Thanks for posting that – I didn’t know why he’d derailed the two bills. Seemed like brilliant way to get the whole nation to think you’re dick, and as such I didn’t understand the motivation.

This is quite a detailed point of the parliamentary process that not many folk are going to get. So, err, yes maybe he has a point, but on the other hand I don’t believe that many MPs just swan about doing jack shit rather than “turning up to work” in the Commons. They have other responsibilities too, and having worked in the civil service (and loathed pretty much all the ministers I worked under, all stripes) certainly members of the government have an absurd volume of work to get through. With this in mind, and with no proposal of a better way system, I have no view on private members bills, but I can see that making laws with only a handful of representatives present is suboptimal. But not really a pressing issue for me.

Appreciate your point, I’m sure they do have a fair workload. But he’s derailed a number of bills purely because of this, not the bill itself. The reverse logic would be if those who turn up think the bill is more than reasonable, allow it through and set up a proper debate on the process as a separate issue.

The serious ones may be better than legislation from a government with a strong majority because they have to gather cross party support rather than rely on MPs being unthinkingly obedient to the party line and the government whips.

I can sort of understand what he was trying to prove (that laws should be well thought out and discussed) I believe in this case, he’s shot himself in the foot by applying his blanket “system” to this specific piece of legislation.

His history, makes him appear as a awkward bollocks who’s simply trying to mess things up.

Personally, I agree and he’s misjudged the upskirting bill issue (and in my daughter’s case, Finns Law, but that’s her opinion). Where he really seems to fall down as an MP is if he’s so upset by the process, surely he can have a say on it, especially as he’s in the ruling party!!

He has tried to use the same parliamentary mechanism to push a bill through to get people to pay for NHS treatment, so it’s not an objection to the mechanism in principle, it’s that he’s an unpleasant individual!!

My understanding, admittedly from study 30+ years ago, was that there was a ballot of the MPs who wished to put forward a PMB – i.e names drawn out of a hat. If an MP got a high position, top 20 for example, they were in with a chance and only then did they have to decide what the bill would contain.

The other option is the 10 minute rule, but that rarely if ever succeeded. And again I thought it was decided by a once-a-year ballot, not first come first served.

Sounds like CC created a stack of PMBs as just another tactic to block the process. If this is possible then he has highlighted just another archaic tradition of parliament that needs to be reformed.

It’s also worth repeating that Chope and his fellow dinosaur Phillip Davis are subject to the Tory whip. They could be brought to heel if the political will was there. Although given that May has had to bribe the bigots of the DUP with £1.5bn, she presumably feels these guys are small beer.

The thing is he is quite happy to sponsor PMBs when it suits him (by some reckoning dozens of them). Given this he can hardly claim some point of principle when he obstructs others. Further, his track record suggests (pretty much proves actually) his problem isn’t actually process but any sort of progressive law. Finally if he is so bothered by this, what has he done to get the process changed?

He might have a point re: Finn’s Law – as cute and innocent as they are, a dog’s life is not as valuable as a human’s.

Maybe there is value in having someone who sticks their head above the parapet and challenges popular emotive bills. There’s no way of knowing they are right if you’re not allowed to question them. Would be nice if they read them first though

Maybe there is value in having someone who sticks their head above the parapet and challenges popular emotive bills. There’s no way of knowing they are right if you’re not allowed to question them.

Trying desperately to defend the indefensible, I imagine he’s latched onto the old legal cliche ‘hard cases make bad law’. It doesn’t follow that unusually extreme cases that point up an obvious absurdity in the law should be deliberately ignored, of course.

Once its passed a vote in the chamber a PMB is then subject to the same scrutiny as any other bill. Most PMB fail so it’s not as if the commons vote is just is rubber stamp to legislate against any shitty grievance an MP might have. Have a look at the shitty legislation the govt has enacted that he didn’t vote against to form an opinion on what his true motivations are.

I’d imagine an MP will have a look at what’s going through the chamber in advance of turning up, or not as the case may be.

Whether or not they attend will depend upon whether the whips tell them to and if not, whether they feel they’re needed. In this case I imagine most thought the bill uncontroversial and as such it’s passage was assured. For that reason most would decide to get on with something that definitely did require their attention. It doesn’t mean they’re not interested or lazy.